Neither of Anna Hurd’s parents could bear to sit through the entire sentencing Tuesday of their daughter’s murderer.

As Hurd and her boyfriend had walked through a park near Maplewood Middle School after midnight Feb. 23, the 16-year-old told him that he would not be accompanying her to her mother’s home in Texas. Their relationship was over, she said.

Anthony Joseph Mitchell Jr. (Courtesy Ramsey County sheriff’s office)

Anthony Joseph Mitchell Jr. turned on her and stabbed her five times. The last strike was in her back, prosecutor Rosita Severin told the Ramsey County courtroom.

Severin then disclosed that one of the wounds pierced Anna Hurd’s heart, a detail previously unknown to family members.

Patrick Hurd spoke again. “Piece of (expletive),” he hissed. Then, he left the courtroom.

Mitchell was sentenced Tuesday afternoon in Ramsey County District Court in St. Paul to nearly 22 years in prison. The sentence satisfied none of Anna’s family.

After her mother spoke of her unrelenting grief, she, too, left the courtroom. Cries could be heard as the door closed.

Mitchell, 17, stabbed Hurd hours before she was to leave for Texas.

Hurd’s parents and other family members spoke tearfully at the sentencing, saying their family was broken and lost since Anna’s death.

Anna Hurd’s aunt Penny Griffin wipes away a tear as her sister, mom Jennifer Hutchings, talks to the press after the decisions were rendered and Anthony Mitchell was sentenced at the Ramsey Co. Courthouse in St Paul Tuesday afternoon June 25, 2013. (Pioneer Press: John Doman)

Her mother, Jennifer Hutchings, said she and Anna’s stepfather had separated. She was unable to work. She couldn’t leave the house. Anna’s sister and brother had dropped out of school.

She said she didn’t understand how Mitchell could pretend in the days after the murder that someone else was her daughter’s killer, that he sympathized with the family, that he had tried to help Hurd when he found her bleeding in the snow.

“How could (Mitchell) look at her (in her coffin) and not break?” she said. “How could he kill my precious daughter?”

Hutchings said she is working with a writer on a book about her daughter and teenage domestic abuse, called “I Trusted Him: The True Story of Anna Hurd.”

Mitchell did not speak at the sentencing. Defense lawyer Susan Scarborough told Judge Gail Chang Bohr that he was remorseful — contrary to what Hurd’s family believed.

“I think this young man is truly tortured by what he has done and he wants the court to know that,” Scarborough said.

His parents, Anthony and Laurie Mitchell, said in a statement that they are a close-knit family who love and support their son.

“Anthony is more than just today,” the statement said. “He is a much-loved son, an adored brother, a cherished grandson, a beloved nephew and cousin and a treasured friend.”

He had volunteered at care centers, assisted-living centers, battered women’s shelters and clothing closets, his parents said. He spent three years in the ROTC and had enlisted in the Army National Guard, they said.

But Severin said Mitchell has thought only of himself since the murder. He lied repeatedly after killing Hurd, even telling the probation department before sentencing that Anna Hurd had taken drugs the night she died, Severin said.

“We know that did not occur” because the autopsy found no drugs in her system, the prosecutor said.

Mitchell pleaded guilty to intentional second-degree murder after he was certified to be tried as an adult. The sentence was determined as part of the plea agreement.

Anna Hurd was 16 when she died. (Courtesy of KARE 11)

Mitchell said he and Hurd spent the evening of Feb. 22 together at Mitchell’s house in Maplewood and at a friend’s. They planned to catch a bus the next day for Texas. Hurd had been staying with her father in North St. Paul.

But about 2:30 a.m. Feb. 23, Hurd said she wanted to spend the night at a friend’s house, Mitchell said.

He accompanied her for her protection, Mitchell said. They took a paved trail through Hillside Park near Maplewood Middle School.

“She said that she did not want me to go with her to Texas,” and he thought he heard her say she was leaving the relationship, Mitchell said.

He wanted answers, but she ignored him, he said in his May 10 plea hearing.

Finally, Mitchell said, “she told me to get out of her face, and she shoved me backwards.”

A knife fell out of his sweat pants pocket, and they struggled for it. He got to it first and stabbed her four times. She ran. He stabbed her again.

“I was afraid she was going to go tell,” he said.

Hurd bled to death in the snow.

“I dragged her body back into the woods about 10 feet … so no one would find her,” Mitchell said

His mother called 911 about two hours later, saying her son found Hurd injured in the park.

Mitchell, sobbing during the call, told the dispatcher he tried to perform CPR and denied involvement in her killing.

Mitchell had no criminal record.

Hurd’s friends said Mitchell could be sweet and funny at times but jealous and controlling at others. They said they witnessed his angry outbursts in the weeks before her death, including an incident in which he bashed her kitten against her car’s steering wheel.

They said Hurd and Mitchell broke up several times and that she talked of ending the relationship, but she was afraid of what he might do.

After the sentencing, the defendant’s grandmother reached out to Anna Hurd’s mother and aunt and put her arms around them.

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